Too Many negative comments. He is showing how to do a quick & cheerful clear coat repair. He selects one portion of the car just to show the steps. Most people will not contemplate respraying an old vehicle due to the high cost. This is a second best approach & it's shown clearly - Thanks
Peter Owens: Don't bother to explain. Most of these people are either women or people who have no idea what it takes to repair a scratch on a car. This is a helpful video but not the best.
I love your videos! I've been a mechanic for the past 24 years. Your sense of humor is hilarious! You make your videos entertaining & very informative in a concise way. You have loads of charm & don't repel me like so many of the people who are desperately trying to be "cool" or "badass". I find them hard to stomach. You're genuine & the real deal.
This is an excellent DIY video for older cars but here are a few important tips from 40 years as a car painter. Related to this car only: 1. Scotch pad the entire windshield post, down to the hood and clear the entire part. 2. If you need to blend, pick smallest area and then sand with progressive paper sizes. Move from 1000 to 2000 to 3000 paper as you move away from the imaginary blend line. (Note: We normally buff the good area of the panel with fine compound (white) then wet sand into that area with progressive grits of wet paper.) 3. The fold back paper idea is OK but you need to have a longer fold over area. The tape needs to be at least 8 to 10 inches from the fold and do not press down hard on that tape. (Note: Be sure not to press down on the fold. It needs to be up and puffy not tight to the car’s surface, so that some of the clear can sneak underneath.) 4. When you have finish each coat, pull back a “little” on the folded paper. Open a few more inches of surface and then do the second medium wet coat. And again on the third coat, so that a little more area is exposed. (Note: On the final coat, the tape should be at least 4 inches away from the fold so that a hard line is not created. 5. Immediately after the third coat, pull off the paper and tape in the blend are and spray a fourth coat over entire “main repair area” and then pull down and blend spray on to the 3000 area. (Note: Must be wet and fast, plus you must do immediately after the third coat.) 6. The blend area may not look wet but let it dry for a week, lightly wet sand with some 3000 (again) and then buff with white (fine grit) compound. Note: When spraying with a gun or even a can, you don’t want to break the arm stroke in the middle of a panel like was done in the video. Move your arm across the entire panel from one end to the other, with no stopping in the middle. Please note that the video was right on for a quick detailing of a car with milking clear coats. If it is badly pealing you will have some issues, so use this as a guide and it will help. Good luck with your project, Gary
All good points 👍🏼 The only bit I don't do myself is the blended end mask. Stay cans and guns allow you to control the flow pretty easily. Personally I just mask the surrounding panels/glass and overshoot the blend point. I do do what you describe though... except in reverse. The first coat goes full length, 2nd a little less and 3rd less again. Blending a join line with wet sanding isn't something I've ever done apart from custom stencil jobs that need a fade.
Nice tips! What would happen if you just carefully peeled the whole car of the old clear coat, polished the base coat underneath and put on a new layer of clearcoat? Is it possible to polish base coat and get it in good condition once more if it's oxidized?
Nice little video & you definitely have the patience of a great teacher. The problem for me, 15 years experience with body repairs indoor/outdoor/2k/1k paints is the masking technique you used to blend out the new clear into the old. No matter what you do, wet sand, compound, polish etc you will never remove the line left by the masking technique you used. Everywhere else is great. Yes were talking about clunker cars that dont have real $$value & a cheap fix is the order of the day but what i will highlight wont cost any more time or $$ than you used here. If you’ve not used the cave technique it is very simple. At the point that you wish to end the new clear (where you put your masking tape) you create a cave about 2 inches high with your masking paper & tape with the entrance to the cave facing towards the start of the job. The end of the cave can be 3-4 inches long tapering down to the panel. So an open cave one side & closed at the end. It’s important that you have wet sanded 2000 grit all the way along the panel that the cave is on & an inch or so after as this is the compounding polishing area when all done. Now as you spray from the start of the run towards the cave & end of the run you ‘feather’ the clear (almost like a flick of the can) into the cave entrance (haha keep it clean guys!) but very lightly. Once you’ve completed 2-3 coats using this technique remove the paper & tape that made up the cave immediately without making contact with the new paint area. You will see then that the end of the clear coat run (at the point where you got the line) has very gently feathered & graduated away... but thats definitely NOT where you leave it. Next, & with the clear coat still wet you immediately take a can of lacquer thinners spray & very lightly ‘toot’ the area where the feathered clear coat is, being very very careful not to spray a heavy (toot like a hair stylist might do to perfect that hair do at the end with hair spray) & not onto any old clear that has not been 2000 grit sanded. And that my friends is the secret. The feathered area will melt both the new & old (2000 grit sanded) clear coat together into a seamless no line perfect blend. Now leave that for at least 3 days but a week is ideal. When you go back thats when you 1500 then 2000 grit the whole area sprayed & then compound polish as you did to fine blend the job. Please note: there is a great deal more that actual goes into body repair & paint repair (Pro’s keep it in you pants) but in the spirit of what this video is about (getting a good & cheap result when they all said f/off) having a go yourself is part of the fun. Well done!
I am a professional. But for the average guy fixing his own car up on a cheap budget, this is great. Yes no body shop would warranty that repair but he's just trying to help out the do it your-self-er. Nice job on the cheap! ( for the non professional).
Great video. Ive watched dozens of these clear coat fix videos and this is the 1st that I feel I can follow and end up with similar results. I appreciate your simplicity, honesty and the speed of the video ( how fast you got your work explained and demonstrated) many thanks and continued success .
I love how you teach. I'm a journeyman mechanic with 35 years experience an you do an awesome job teaching. I'm not a body guy, but I have a 68 GTO with terminal clear rot and I can fix it without referencing your video again. Thank you. I send you some pictures if it comes out good.
Fantastic video bro! Very concise and to the point. Your delivery was spot-on and easy to understand. I know there's a lot of people out there that appreciated the fact that you did not try to hide anything and make this out to be some sort of cure-all! The side by side comparison you cannot argue with! Thank you very much!
Your video is perfect for my application. My car is 10 years old and I had a new bumper put on 8 years ago. The bumper clearcoat started to peel in one spot, from the mudflap. Body shops want to redo the bumper for $1000. I get that they have to repair as new, but that is just a waste of money in my case. Thanks for your video!!
Right!! And make sure you cover the car with old sheets and wet the floor! Keeps overspray off your car...and keeps floor dust kicked up while walking around tacked to the floor!!! Well said!
Great no-nonsense practical repair. Most people are not looking for showroom quality. Most people just want to stop their vehicles from becoming rust buckets, and this does the trick wonderfully!
May I suggest for the transition area, do a diagonal finish rather than a straight line, I do this, it tricks the eye of the viewer from noticing a blunt line,. A line like this / or more slanted depending on your area, just saying. Like this video very much, good detailed instruction!
@@Kgio-2112 That's debatable, and will always depend on the quality of the cut/joinery anyway..problem with an angle cut is that there is a longer joint line=more chance to see imperfections..
You wanna come in like an airplane landing and taking off again if you want a gradual reduction in thickness of clear coat to blend the edge too. Try with spray paint on paper first.
Pretty good video man for real. I have a spot on my vehicle I need to repair and this video showed me exactly what I needed to know. Ty for your time in creating the video
Mpokerdonk sand it down. Prime, block then paint. You can clearly see that you can still see the damage under the clear. This is no where near the proper way of doing the repair.
Right. In the real world, where we have full time jobs and kids and many other things to spend our precious time on, you're suggesting something that bumps hard up against the decision to spend dozens of free time hours OR pay a body shop to do it for you. Here's a real world scenario: A high school kid has a car with these very same problems. The car looks pretty awful, but fixable as per this vid, the kid surely can't afford the $1,500 it has been estimated to cost to do a full-on warranted repair, but the kid (and Mom & Dad) really wants to see some kind of improvement in the car's appearance. No, this isn't the kid's last car or a forever car, it's a first car that is going to get some rough handling. In this case, it is way easy to say "yes" to a couple of weekends worth of work to get a 95% improvement in the cars look. As a parent, I see a lot of good learning and pride of work in this. RnW, thanks for the vid!
I enjoy this guy's presentation (Ratchets And Wrenches) in his vids. No fuss, clear unambiguous directions with reasons, enough humour to lift and keep my interest, and no wasting time with boring superfluous waffle. Thank you. Cheers, Peter
You can find elbow grease at your local auto parts store. It's in aisle elevendy. Right next to the blinker fliud and muffler bearing grease. If you want synthetic elbow grease, the store can special order it for you.
Thanks man you educated me on how to do it myself and was very honest that it isn't perfect. If I want perfect I'll have the whole thing painted. Great video I subscribed to learn more, keep it up!
Thanks for putting in the effort to do this video for us. I've never tried but I've always wondered what it would look like if you just sanded back the peeling clear and just sprayed it with new clear. From the looks of it, providing that the clear is in its early stages of failure and the base coat hasn't been too compromised/damaged by the sun an weather, this is definitely a great low budget fix - especially for cheap old beater cars. Also it's a great way to practise spraying clear, blending, compounding and polishing for very little cost. It also appears that a quick and easy way to check what the outcome will be before you start is to wet the panel. If there's a massive coloration difference between the damaged wet areas and any good clear coat then it's probably better to redo the panel from scratch - sand, prime, base, clear.
This is really great. I have an old car covered in sun spots and had no idea that I could fix it myself, and I don’t want to spend the hundreds on getting the whole car repainted. I’m going to do this !!!
Great video! This actually helps non-refinishing-people to maybe understand the refinishers job. Blending clear on black coat to make it invisible is a difficult in its own level! I did a few clear repairs, and i ended up clear coating the whole sections right from the start! Saved some time and got better result! Time is money, right!? Would love to see this line of work on a silver coated car! Just thinking, guess the damage on the basecoat could be more visible. Keep doing what u do 👍💯🔥
Great, thanks. I learned a couple of things, which are not intuitive, like "run the (polisher) at a low to medium speed", and "little to no pressure", and "only buff away from new paint/clear coat". At first, I thought the instructions were too specific - I'm impatient - but, I started breathing, and relaxed. Very good!
Did it just like you said. Used the links....and it came out great on my 1999 red F-150. Awesome!!! Referenced you and your video in Amazon review of the aerosol.
Excellent video. I own one of the Honda cars recalled because of clear coat failure. Only problem, mine didn’t show any problem, until the recall had expired, now it looks really bad. Thanks for the lesson.
Thank you for these tips. You were right. Napa sucks. I put some on and no shine. So I bought the 2K you said to use and followed your directions. Came out smooth as glass and just as shinny. Very happy with the result on my car.
I took down notes to help me remember. Thank you very much. Your tips can be used with any spray painting project - especially on moving the can first! I'm making sure that first crap out of the can is on the masking paper with wooden and metal door repair projects, etc.
I have a 1998 Dodge Dakota with some splotches on the roof where the clear-coat has come off. I think I'll try this. Even if it doesn't look great, it will still be much less of an eye-soar than it is now.
This is so helpful, I think I can actually follow this. I have a spot on my car and it's only small, don't really want to pay a lot of money to get it done professionally especially since it's in an inconspicuous spot as well. 😁
Very helpful. The clearcoat is entirely gone on the roof of our backup car- a 2009 Carolla. I may tackle this soon. I dont think I should need to blend since it is literally the entire roof.
Thanks you just saved me from getting a paint job knowing all I have to do is sand and spray some 2k max and it will look good as new Is awesome thanks bro
Working auto body shops at oceanfront property in Arizona just like everyone else they need to make money just want to make you look better than what it does now there's a way you can do this yourself and it's not a quality of your peers. THIS GUY IS A GREAT MAN. salesman!
I must've watched this video at least 10 times...lol. Ratchets And Wrenches actually gave me the info I needed (and the hope/confidence) to fix the clear coat on my wife's car, without having to pay a small fortune. Love the video, and the guy's 'dry' humour...lol. Very well done. Keep it up!
Having used that brand of paint to spot repair my hood, take so good advice and cover the WHOLE car prior to painting. You can get a 10' x 20' poly drop cloth at Lowes Depot for $4.
Feathering out that blistered clear coat with a piece of 2000 grit 3M would have looked even better in the final product...so long as you don't burn through the base coat under the dead clear coat during sanding. Good work tho man.
You could have blended the transition better by doing it at the same time of the original clearing. As you spray the clear progressively paint a little further down each time feathering the end of the stroke. If you have to unmask and move down the "A" pillar further do it. When done unmask edges right away to help edges melt in. Another thing on blending buy some rattle can blender and spray the transition areas, for the novice painters it just helps meld the two areas together. Now what you did was a huge improvement but doing these extra steps only required buying one more product the blender.
This video has saved me so much money. My clear coat is peeling there on my mustang and a shop would have to repaint the whole back quarter panel because its all one piece. Thank you.
The clear he is using is just a good and can be wet sanded and polished just like regular auto body paint shops. I would recommend everyone covering the rest of the car with a sheet or blanket, because the overspray will be hard to get off.
I've heard that the nanoskin pads are good for removing overspray - although for sure masking things off is easier than trying to fix it after the fact.
It's a good video but i think you should have done the whole length of the piece instead of stopping close to the middle. It's a good realy good way to blend.....clear coat really well done. You are a Master painter sir.
You are a Jack of all trades! This looks great. For the DIYer who wants to do this on the cheap, this is the way to go. Thanks for the video and detailed explanations. And the 2 part clear coat will give the best results. It probably looks better outside without all the lights on as well.
Thanks dude. You taught me how to spray paint and do the transition. You loaded this short video with all kinds of pertintent info. Wow. As a repair job this is 100% improvement.
Exactly what I was thinking-I'm not familiar with automotive scotch-brite pads. Based what I've seen elsewhere, the recommendation seems to be 1200 grit or finer. Depends if you're doing it by hand, and whether you are accommodating for inexperience with patience, as is my usual approach lol
Thanks, nice instructional video. My 96 Cabrio can only look better with a coat of clear coat. Never knew about the 2K clear coat. I am glad to see you wearing the respirator.
Hey man great video, great instructions but i have a question. So I'm a detailer and bought a car with a half assed paint job, the paint has orange peel and tons of swirls and scratches, normally I can do a paint correction and it wouldnt be a problem but my concern in that there's clear coat failure on the top of the drivers door. My question is could I sand it off then "correct the paint" with Coumpound and polish, and ceramic coat it as if there was no peel at all? The paint is real thin in not sure there's a primer because the front bumper has tons of chips including a large spot on the center of the bumper where it shows the old paint because it all just shipped off. What are your thoughts I know this is a long shot for a reply but I figured it wouldnt hurt to ask anyway. Thank you in advance.
Jared Miramontes I think you need to rough up the whole surface before you clear coat it. If you sand through the paint i think you will need to refinish the colour coat in those spots as well. I have a car that’s losing it’s clear coat on the hood. The car is 13:years old, but it is a low mileage vehicle. I drive it mainly in the summer. The hood is of course stone chipped also. The local body shop wants to strip the hood and refinish it. I’m exploring cheaper methods.
Yes, I was surprised to see him do that. Made no sense. And he does some extra swipes after saying he is doing a certain number of thin/medium coats etc.
This looks great to me. I have been quoted around £300 to have a jag hood painted, ( car only cost £200 ). Will watch this several more times and give it a go.
The factory clear coat starts to fail after ~10 yrs where I live in the CA Central Valley. You might get 20 years if you strive to park in garages and under trees. Looks terrible on cars w/ dark paint. It is starting to fail, but barely noticeable on my wife's silver 2002 T&C. My black 1985 M-B looked bad on all the horizontal surfaces, but people say it has a solid color coat underneath, so isn't the normal basecoat-clearcoat paint. I figured that once the clear-coat is gone, I might have useable paint underneath. Indeed, I found I could scrape off the failed clearcoat w/ a fingernail. I let it continue degrading a few years, then scraped off w a metal putty knife and 600 grit wet sandpaper. Still working at it, but looks much better. Hardest is blending the transition on the corners where it changes to still-solid clearcoat on the sides. I sanded the sunroof to 2000 grit and almost mirror-smooth now. Eventually, I'll finish w/ polishing and rubbing compound. When I paint my classic 1960's cars, I'll use solid paint that can be easily repaired. Manufacturers use clear-coat for a shiny showroom look and don't care about 10 yrs later. Indeed, better for them if your car starts looking bad since that returns people to the showroom for another initially-shiny vehicle. They also change body styles from round to square to round again to make you look out of fashion after 15 years. Amazing how they get sheeple to follow their silly ads, like most are now embarrassed to drive a minivan (most practical vehicle ever), so now want a "cross-over" which has become a minivan in an uglier style.
Sounds like a long long job... by the time you finally finish it, the first lot of clear coat you put on will start lifting lol I have a friend who took so long to paint his house section by section (just over 3 years), by the time he got to the end point he noticed the paint had started lifting on the first section where he started. He was so upset. Was hilarious for us though 😂
I paid 700 for an 05 lesabre and inherited an 02 ranger both w bad clear coat but otherwise decent vehicles. Im doin this asap. Thanx man great vid as always
Thanks for video. Pretty simple and straightforward. I did make a mistake by not taping it down as much which made my newspaper stick to my paint. Underestimated the damn wind
i dont think you know what cheap means in this context. I did this and my car looks waaaay better than berfore and its been 3 years. Better than paying a body shop when one is in a budget.
I am curious on why you did not re-spray with black basecoat before using the clear... it would have hidden the damage completelly. Also, blending is a bad idea IMHO, you are better off respraying the whole pannel than having a visible transition in the middle of a pannel. The other thing is that if you do that, you should then compound and polish the pannels you did not re-paint because the difference between new paint and old damaged paint will be very apparent. Overall it's a good presentation, you showed a simple way to do this, and it will help a lot of people.
My friend, glad you talked about back taping, back masking, that is really important.. It would have been easier to open the door to tape that edge where it meets the other panel... If you back mask, back tape correctly, and the tape is standing up holding the paper, there will never be a transition line to have to sand down... The clear coat blows under the tape and disperses evenly so there is never a hard line defining where you painted and the existing paint.. I would have used a small thin hard rubber block to do all the sanding so it was evenly done across the entire work. I never ever sand anything dry.. I use a lot of water, and a block sized for the work.. Also - Never - stop the painting in the middle of the panel ! No... You can easily move yourself and the can to paint that entire part without stopping.. You need to do it that way and it will turn out better, the paint will be absolutely the same thickness all the way across, there will be no stop/start in the first 1/3 of it as you did it.. It would be better to get a backing plate and pads sized to the work than that huge 6 inch pad.. Also, when compounding, you also have to tape over things that if compounded will be damaged.. Those hard plastic edges above and next to the panel, and the rubber window gasket under the panel should be taped off, so the compounding does not damage them.. Thank you for making this video !
I just found your channel yesterday and I'm very excited! It's not easy to tell by my screen name so just so you know I'm a woman. I grew up with a dad who worked on hot rods and my first car was a top-notch Chevelle built by my dad and it was his car for 10 years. I have a Honda Odyssey minivan and the paint is peeling really bad on the hood and it's been driving me crazy but I don't want to pay much money to fix it since I don't have a lot of money in the van. Yesterday I watched your video about my radiator cap that was very helpful hopefully that's the problem. Thanks for the channels I'll be watching all your videos and contributing at some point.
Very timely. I have an older Trailblazer with this exact condition (partially horizontal surfaces on starboard side damaged by sun, I think). Body shops will only do the entire car, but not worth it. I'll try this. Great video.
Rattle cans will never produce a professional result its a cheaper fix also when the clear coat has faded most likely so has the base (color) he should have sprayed some base first cheap rattle can of black let flash off 30 min then clear entire panel no tape line
I have recently pealing clear coat on the hood, front roof and upper door panel (like in this example) base coat is still in great condition. Question: you think I would on be able to wet sand with 1500 paper to remove the pealing coat and blend with the old and then spray new clear coat?
Great video. I have a 1987 Trans Am GTA with some spots identical to this and I have been trying to figure out how to deal with them without an entire paint job. Thanks!!!
@@mattt6511 Yes I was only joking when I made my comment but I do know that Honda had an entire run of Civics with bad clear coat that peels worse than a three year old with no sunscreen on a Brazilian beach.
@@minkorrh doing a 09 civic now.. Stripping it down and starting over. The only way to keep it from coming back. And if the customer wants to pay for the extra work lol
